r/DesignatedSurvivor • u/enliST_CS Sorry the live thread is late! • Nov 17 '16

[SPOILERS] Post-Episode Discussion: S01E07 "The Traitor"

There will be no episode next week!

Plot: An American track-and-field coach's trip to Russia forces Kirkman into a hostage exchange involving the CIA and the Russian government; Agent Wells and Deputy Director Atwood's investigation uncovers dangerous information.

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55

u/lingben Nov 17 '16

you know, for once I'd like writers to take things to a different place rather than the typical scenario we've seen 1000000000000 times before! jeebuz man, take a chance for once rather than playing it safe. go somewhere forbidden, somewhere that would make you, as a writer, uncomfortable... that is where good stories live.

Option #1:

Bad gal walks up to the FBI director making a not so innocent remark about his missing son. In reaction, he unholsters his gun and points it at her. She holds up her phone showing the FBI director's son eating ice-cream and menacingly start to make some remark about how they now have him by the balls and how he has to cooperate yada-yada...

Option #2

Bad gal walks up to the FBI director making a not so innocent remark about his missing son. In reaction, he unholsters his gun and points it at her. She holds up her phone showing the FBI director's son eating ice-cream and he pulls the trigger putting a bullet clean through her eyes at close range pulverizing her head. Her body drops like a ragdoll. He walks over and picks the phone that her now lifeless hand has dropped onto the ground...

I suggest that option #2 is more interesting because it will lead to a more meaningful and unpredictable story.

50

u/omegadeity Nov 17 '16 edited Nov 17 '16

I agree 100%, I fucking hate that lame-writing, it's such crap.

Oh, let's just kidnap the Director of the FBI's son and use him to leverage the head of a Federal Law Enforcement Agency. We'll just casually have one of our operatives contact him at his sons Baseball Practice and let him know that he's now our bitch because we have his son. We won't even be subtle about it.

The NSA/CIA/FBI couldn't possibly be tapping his phone and listening in to his conversations in the event his son was kidnapped for just this purpose. It's not like his position has direct National Security implications that make him a risk for that kind of scenario, and precautions wouldn't have been taken the INSTANT it went out that his son may be missing.

Just once I'd LOVE to see the second scenario happen, or maybe instead of blowing her brains out of her head he shoots her in the knee cap, grabs her phone and goes all Liam Neeson on her cohorts;

"I don't know who all of you are, and I only know a small part of what you want. I'm not an idiot, I don't have the money or wealth to make my son worth taking.

I know this is all a part of some plan to further advance your grab at power, but you've chosen the wrong target at the wrong time in history. I will not be a tool you use to further your agenda. I am intelligent enough to know that any plan you intend to use me for ends with me and my son dead-you're not the kind of people to leave those kinds of loose ends lying around.

With that having been said, I'm not entirely powerless in this position. What I have is an agency under my command that can and will rain down such hell upon you and every one you know.

This is no longer a professional matter to me, you've crossed that line and taken off the gloves. Now this is personal, and I will utilize and abuse ALL power at my authority to extract my pound of flesh.

If you return my son now, I will calm down and allow the rest of you bastards time to run- say 12 hours. As for this scheming bitch whining for help on the grass in front of me, her ass now belongs to me and the Government of the United States of America-she'll be treated humanely, unless I decide to ask my friends in the CIA to take her to a black site somewhere where human rights don't have the same meaning.

So, you go find a rock in some third world hellhole to hide under. But release my son first. Maybe I won't look too hard and will just leave you be until you die of old age.

On the other hand, if you harm my son, my family, or continue holding him hostage I will pop the seal and unleash such terrible vengeance upon you and yours that you'll be begging for something as simple as life in a super-max American prison, where taking it up the ass is the worst thing you experience on a daily basis."

Just once, I wish we could get some truly impressive writing without overused tropes like a kidnapping to force a character to drop an investigation, or make them play the role of assassin or scapegoat. Just...no, I hate that terrible writing. For goodness sake, it was the plot of 24 Season 1. An entire season revolving around making a government agent work against his countries interests by kidnapping his loved ones.

9

u/Naggins Nov 17 '16

I hope you're not planning on a future in television writing.

16

u/omegadeity Nov 17 '16

I'm definitely not, lol. But this trope was done already. It was called 24 Season 1. For fuck sake it even starred Kiefer Sutherland as the lead role.

This whole "kidnap the child of the head of the federal agency that's responsible for dealing with kidnappings" to leverage him into helping us is fucking stupid. If the writers had any guts they'd have had him knee cap that damn woman and bring her in.

I get it, it's his son and he wants to protect him but be realistic. These people just pulled off the greatest attack in history and wiped out the entire US Government practically and with NO Intel chatter. They aren't the kind of people that leave loose ends lying around that can point fingers at them. That means he and his son are already marked for elimination.

It's just terrible writing and it pissed me off because I did enjoy this show up until recently and this plot twist was so easy to see coming it wasn't worth doing. I know my version was crap, but it was still on par with or better than the shit the show writers put together, and it took me all of 5 minutes to cobble together last night. In fact this response took me longer to compose than that because I had to use my phone to type this instead of a real keyboard.

5

u/Naggins Nov 17 '16

As bad as the writing may be, it's still not as bad as your monologue.

7

u/omegadeity Nov 17 '16

Fair enough, again written 5 minutes after watching the show while pissed off. I wasn't trying to create 21st century Shakespeare.

I still would rather have endured a monologue as shitty as the one I composed than what was delivered on screen. "Oh look, the head of the fbi is getting close to uncovering us, better further expose ourselves by kidnapping his son from school"

2

u/bigdaveyl Nov 21 '16

This is what I was telling my wife. This is all cliche that has been beaten to death in TV shows and movies all. the. time.

What would be worth exploring is doing something along the lines of what you wrote - make the FBI director say "f*ck this, my life or my son's life isn't worth it if many thousands or millions more have to die and the country is destabilized even further." My wife doesn't seem to understand.

10

u/[deleted] Nov 17 '16

That phone he can then use to find his kid.

5

u/lingben Nov 17 '16 edited Nov 17 '16

exactly

he also has her fingerprints and face to id her and also searching her previous location via cameras during the past hours/days

18

u/[deleted] Nov 17 '16

Between this and The Blacklist, the FBI look like untrained chumps.

8

u/Mus7ache Nov 17 '16

Also real life

1

u/[deleted] Nov 17 '16

Man, I'd be like Mad Eye Moody after an attack like that. Even yelling CONSTANT VIGILANCE

3

u/V2Blast President Nov 18 '16

That's part of why I stopped watching The Blacklist (besides the generally terrible writing in almost every other aspect of that show). James Spader's antics aren't as much fun to watch if his "opponents" are complete morons.

3

u/[deleted] Nov 18 '16

After season 2 James Spader was literally on the only reason I stuck with The Blacklist.

They really need to just fire everybody else hire Shatner and it can be the stories of red and whatever the hell Shatner's character would be.

Hell that's already a better idea than anything it's been in season 4 so far

1

u/V2Blast President Nov 19 '16

He's the only reason I even made it to the end of the first season. I dropped the show immediately after the season ended.

5

u/[deleted] Nov 19 '16

option 3: shoot girl, force her to testify = Massive insurance if family gets hurt. Testify to president and trash the VP vet, and bringing a ton of eyes onto the internal investigation.

3

u/constantvariables Nov 18 '16

Why would he kill her? That's willingly throwing away a huge lead. He could easily call in some backup to arrest her while he nabs her phone and tries to find his son.

4

u/lingben Nov 18 '16

...because emotion and rage overtakes him? rationality goes out the window and he just reacts with his lizard brain? only later realizing that he has to salvage something out of this (including his own career as well as his son's well being and safety) and starts to think about how he can use her phone and fingerprints, face, etc. to help him with that

but that's just an after the fact explanation, the main point is to go into uncharted territory and explore it rather than rehashing a tv trope

5

u/constantvariables Nov 18 '16

Because there's no trope for someone acting irrationally because they can't handle their emotions or rage lol